Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Vox Day Explains the Election

After being flagrantly wrong about the outcome of the election — he said Romney would win even though he didn’t vote for him — Vox Day is back to explain what the election means. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s all the fault of non-white people, who aren’t Real American because they voted for Obama:

Americans don’t despair now because the president is a Democrat or because blacks disproportionately supported him. That was equally true when Clinton ran for office. The reason they are reeling with shock and horror is that they have finally come to understand that the melting pot is a myth, that the grand story of immigration they swallowed as children is a monstrous falsehood, and that there are now two very different nations living within the boundaries of what they had previously believed was a single country.

The uncomfortable fact of the matter is that post-1965 immigrants are not, and never will be, Americans in the constitutional or revolutionary sense. It doesn’t matter if they are Catholic mestizos, Christian Asians or Muslim Arabs. It is not a matter of religion or race, but rather of centuries-old cultural traditions in which a dominant central government is considered a basic fact of life and a potential resource to be exploited, not a dangerous servant best viewed with suspicion and kept under constant restraint. This can be seen in the 2012 exit polls: Asians voted 73 percent for Obama’s big government message, Hispanics 71 percent, Muslims 85 percent and blacks 96 percent.

The punchline to this is that Vox Day himself has immigrated out of America. He lives in Europe, surrounded, one presumes, by dirty non-Americans. Oh, and this is the end of America. Again. As it always seems to be when anyone other than a right wing nutball is elected.

Previously, there was a quota system in place: only 170,000 people a year were allowed to immigrate; of that, no more than X could come from country A, no more than Y could come from country B, and so on. With this act, the US switched to a weighted system that considered a person’s skillset and extant family ties and eliminated the limits of number and country of origin.

I’m curious why VD makes such an effort to blame immigrants for voting for Obama and clarifying that he’s not a racist, when this is the same person who makes no bones whatsoever about the fact that he’s a raving misogynist. Why not just come right out and say he thinks non-white people are lesser, in the same way he does about non-male people?

The uncomfortable fact of the matter is that post-1965 immigrants are not, and never will be, Americans in the constitutional or revolutionary sense. I [Vox Day] am a dishonest, racist asshole who relies on implausible coded dogwhistles to give myself room to obfuscate & hide my bigotry.

Vox’s post is just a sad sign that auto-correct is not as advanced as we think it is. The phrase “It is not a matter of religion or race,” should have been automatically replaced with “I am about to write a horribly racist and barely coherent rant.” In fact, the whole post should have been automatically replaced with “I’m a racist douchemonger.” (And yes I do mean that Vox Day mongers douches.)

This guy is a nobody. So the only reason I’m bothered by his argument is that it’s the equivalent argument Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are currently using for their own equally false narrative on why they lost.

Once again we observe conservative Christians, read authoritarians, double-down on their commitment to a narrative that’s been falsified. This cowardly inability to face facts is itself an obvious disqualifier when considering them for office; both as a failure in character and remedial-level competence.

“Democracy sucks cause we didn’t win therefore we should just not let people who vote for the other guys vote again”

***

He lives in Europe, surrounded, one presumes, by dirty non-Americans

Europe which, by the way, recently decided to implement an enormous bureaucratic juggernaut to oversee the banks of the Eurozone. The epitome of the Big Bad Dominant Central Government becoming a basic fact of “jobs creators” life.

The reason they are reeling with shock and horror is that they have finally come to understand that the melting pot is a myth, that the grand story of immigration they swallowed as children is a monstrous falsehood

…And that’s why a majority of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians teamed up with over a third of white people to elect Obama. I’m sorry, but what are we supposed to call it when the country is ruled by a broad multi-racial coalition, if not a melting pot?

Nineteen sixty-five, give or take, also was about the time the blacks in America got all uppity about wanting to vote like the rest of us.
From my understanding, the old “melting pot” wasn’t open to black people at that time, as the were kept separate from the rest of the society either by law (in the South) or by custom (in the North). Unless Vox was referring to an actual pot filled with boiling liquid that black men were thrown into back in those days.

“Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means – decent folk – should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk – people without means.” — Catch-22

Disproportionate relative to what, the numbers in his conservative fever-dream? That’s the dream where people of color and women don’t vote at all, so even one vote would be “disproportionate.”

The punchline to this is that Vox Day himself has immigrated out of America. He lives in Europe

I didn’t know that. I suppose that puts him one slight step ahead of the current crop of “I’m moving to X” who don’t follow through. As you point out, he’s moved to a place that has even more of the things that he doesn’t like than the US does. So one slight step ahead, but still just as stupid.

At least he’s got the “go away” part right. Now he needs to work on “shut up.”

“[…] centuries-old cultural traditions in which a dominant central government is considered a basic fact of life and a potential resource to be exploited, not a dangerous servant best viewed with suspicion and kept under constant restraint.” [emphasis added]

The thing I don’t get about the likes of Vox Day is how he has this idea that government is somehow special among possible human organizations in its lack of trustworthiness, as though private enterprise, religion, etc. haven’t also screwed people over given half a chance.

In a way he’s right, white middle class people live decent lives, and other people live shitty ones. I’ve only been realizing the past few years that there really are two americas, and people like him created them. Between Jim Crow, and then in the 60s the “war on crime” which is really a war on non whites, life sucks for a lot of people, and the Republican party (and old democrats) are to blame.

raven42 The thing I don’t get about the likes of Vox Day is how he has this idea that government is somehow special among possible human organizations in its lack of trustworthiness, as though private enterprise, religion, etc. haven’t also screwed people over given half a chance.

Generally government is far more transparent than private enterprise – especially if they were in charge. Compare investigations into corruption or ineptitude of private prisons or military subcontractors compared to government agencies.

And how the hell do you check for honesty (and sanity) in a prophet of God?

If we were a melting pot society, then this old boy from a southern all-American white family would be eating burritos, listening to Miles Davis, and practicing kung fu for exercise. Oh, wait – I already do that.

Vox Day has moved to Europe? Hahaha!
[…]
Say, you Europeans out there wouldn’t mind another 100,000,000 or so folks just like him, would you?

Oh, please! He has proof that immigrants don’t integrate. Later on in this WND column he points out that he’s been in Europe for quite a while and yet he’s still recognizably American, with American beliefs, American memories and Truck Nuts on his Citroen, which is odd, as I would expect someone as open, self-examining and honest as Vox Day to grow and mature as a human being, but apparently he still stacks his crepes together to make a regular pancake. Like in America!

I’m curious why VD makes such an effort to blame immigrants for voting for Obama and clarifying that he’s not a racist, when this is the same person who makes no bones whatsoever about the fact that he’s a raving misogynist.

Yes, I’m surprised he didn’t use this as an opportunity to repeat his belief that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

With all the talk of melting pots, I’m reminded of an old comic (Wizard of Id?) that included the line “The problem with a melting pot is that the scum rises to the top and everything on the bottom gets burned.”